The second season of the revived Daredevil show (so technically the fifth, I guess?) was more focused, I guess because it wasn’t half another show entirely this time, but some of the interesting plot points were dropped entirely without explanation, which was rather annoying. Still though, as I’ve said a few times on this site, seeing Charlie Cox’s Daredevil face off with Vincent D’Onofrio’s Kingpin is aways worth a watch! Let’s take a look.
The season picks up from the last one (why do I say that, isn’t that really obvious?), with the exception of anything relating to The Punisher which was dropped from the show entirely for some reason, so Wilson “Kingpin” Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio) is now the Mayor of New York and runs it not unlike a certain President runs his country, making up lies, hiding his corruption badly, having his own private police force whose power is greater than actual police officers and who keep arresting and beating people for little reason other than race or the fact they challenge their “master”, that sort of thing. Honestly stuff I really don’t like being reminded of right now as it’s still going on, but at the same time it is based on an actual run of comics long before it somehow became reality, so I can’t complain really. Matt “Daredevil” Murdock (Charlie Cox) and his girlfriend (I guess at this point?) Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll) are leading an underground resistance movement against him, which includes Daredevil taking down an entire ship full of weapons that Fisk was bringing in at the start of the Season. Things get complicated though when Benjamin “Bullseye” Poindexter (Wilson Bethel) shows that he’s turned over a new leaf… sort of, by targeting Kingpin and his men because he believes that will give him his deserved redemption. This is where the shit really hits the fan as Bullseye tries to kill Fisk at a celebrity boxing match but is stopped by Daredevil, but in being stopped the bullet hits a trophy which then shatters and a fragment of the trophy hits Vanessa Fisk (Ayelet Zurer) is the head. After an episode or two of teasing she eventually dies in hospital, and the already unhinged Kingpin suddenly has nobody to keep him in (an admittedly slight) check anymore…
Crouching on a ledge at night in a new black suit? A little too Batmany for my tastes, Mr. Daredevil…
Other storylines running through the season include Krysten Ritter returning as Jessica Jones, helping out Daredevil briefly and revealing that she has a child (later confirmed to be with Luke Cage!) and since then her powers have intermittently dropped on and off. When a shady CIA agent called Mr. Charles (Matthew Lillard) sends some thugs to her house she helps Daredevil destroy a warehouse full of weapons that Charles procured for Fisk but wanted back. It was great seeing her back in the role, I still rate her first season as among the best things in the MCU, or superhero adaptations in general. Another thread running through is Daniel Blake (Michael Gandolfini) being the obnoxious-as-hell protégé of Fisk who begins to get in too deep with Fisk’s “cleaner” and righthand man Buck Cashman (Arty Froushan), including helping him get rid of bodies and such. Blake is also in love with BB Urich (Genneya Walton) who is releasing viral videos mocking and revealing the truth about Fisk on the internet, which leads to a great scene where he has to turn her in to Cashman that I’ll get into in the Spoilers. There are also other strings like ex-therapist Heather Glenn (Margarita Levieva) slowly becoming like previous season villain Muse after the trauma from his attacks has left her mentally damaged, and wealthy vigilante from other MCU projects Jack “Swordsman” Duquesne (Tony Dalton) being arrested and outed as a vigilante.
Don’t know about you, but I’d still vote for him…. Because otherwise I’d be afraid he’d kill me. Hey, if it works it works!
At just eight episodes it doesn’t hang around, which is fine, I know a lot of people had issues with the Netflix series running too long, and I really enjoyed some of the core plotlines. Not only the usual credit to our main trio of Fisk, Murdock and Page but Bullseye is a real treat this season, really getting to show off his supernatural accuracy as well as some dark humour, and his new false idea of redemption direction is interesting. After he’s wounded in his attempt to kill Kingpin/killing of Vanessa Daredevil saves him despite wanting desperately to kill Foggy’s killer, disappointing Bullseye who saw it as a justified action and the perfect end to his life. Karen very nearly does the deed instead, but manages to get talked down by Matt.
As mentioned the only glaring omission is The Punisher, who ended last season breaking out of Fisk’s illegal prison and wanting revenge on the secret police force that had stolen his symbol from themselves. When it didn’t’ get mentioned I assumed the then-upcoming “Punisher: One More Kill” TV special would be where it would be continued / finished but that was weirdly self-contained and had nothing to do with… anything (more on that when I get round to reviewing it) so it’s really kind of annoying. I can only image it has something to do with his appearance in the new Spiderman film? *shrugs*
Overall Thoughts:
Always fun to have more Netflix era MCU characters back… Okay, can take or leave Iron Fist (though in better hands…)
Daredevil: Born Again finishes off the storylines set up in Season 1 in satisfying fashion, plus brings back a few former Netflix-only MCU characters back into the MCU proper. There are some niggles, mostly aping the current US presidential regime leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and the completely dropped Punisher storyline is annoying, but I can’t complain really. A good watch from start to finish.
As things between the anti-Fisk group and the now mentally unhinged Fisk goes nuclear Daredevil and Kingpin have a good old fashioned scrap but at the same time Karen is arrested and so Fisk decides to make a big public trial out of it. Daredevil, as Matt Murdock, represents her and we get some actual courtroom drama out of it, one that ends with Matt outing himself as Daredevil and showing evidence of Fisk’s illegal activities, clearing Karen’s name to his own detriment. Meanwhile Blake lets BB go and is killed by a hesitant Cashman in a really good scene where you weren’t sure whether the Kingpin’s righthand man would have the cold-heartedness to kill what he now saw as a friend (apparently when they shot it Cashman didn’t pull the trigger, it was only after the fact that everyone saw that there was nowhere to go with Blake that they changed it, which was interesting… and makes sense, because Blake was a really unpleasant little shit and doing one nice thing really shouldn’t have led to some sort of happy ending for him…)
Oh yeah, I forgot about the daughter of the vigilante who was killed in Season 1 taking up her father’s mantel… oh well. There she is, along with everyone else!
Back with the main plot, a large anti-Fisk group, including Daredevil, Page and Jessica Jones, all head to the courthouse where things begin to fall apart for the Kingpin, including Cashman getting wounded protecting him. As the group breaks through Fisk goes on a rather horrible killing spree, snapping people’s spines and crunching their heads, until Daredevil himself manages to get through to him and offer a deal: Fisk steps down and retires to somewhere far away rather than go to prison and/or execution. Kingpin agrees, and New York begins to return to normal without anyone questioning where the Mayor who openly murdered a bunch of protestors went. We see Matt and Karen having a meal before the police arrive to arrest him for the crimes he’s committed as his masked self, much to the real police’s dismay, though at least we see the smug private Fisk police force guys being carted into prison alongside Matt, so that’s nice. We also see Luke Cage (Mike Coler himself!) return home, revealing he was forced to do shady things for Mr. Charles but “now he’s found a new guy”, and we see that new guy is Bullseye! Great stuff. Lots to unpack in the thankfully confirmed Season 3, and it looks like we’ll be taking a break from the Kingpin stuff, which is fine for a bit of variety.